I've spent the last two years of my career as a work-at-home mom (WAHM) and I would not have it any other way. I mean, what's there not to like about a 1-minute commute, spending time with your kids at their best times of day, and doing the groceries when the shops are quiet? But it's a constant work-in-progress and I find that I'm constantly having to learn as I go.

So one of the perks of being a WAHM is that I get to go to Thursday Mom's Group, where we find something to entertain the kids and then chat about various aspects of being a mom. This week, since it was my turn to host, I decided to talk about being a WAHM. So this post covers some of the main takeaways of our discussion, plus there are some questions that you can answer that will hopefully help you to navigate your path as a WAHM.

You are a trailblazer

Step aside suffragettes and bra-burners, we are the new revolution! Well, maybe not quite, but I think that as WAHMs we are forging a path that is quite new. Technology has allowed us to do a wider range of work from home, so there are many options available to women who want to stay at home with their kids, but not completely cut off from the working world. The thing is that there's no textbook on how to do this. And I think the temptation is to "have it all" and "do it all", but it's not as simple as that, and in fact trying to "do it all" can lead us into burnout. So I think that as WAHM's, we need to share our experiences so that we can help each other navigate this new path together.

Change your achievement framework

So, when you were working full-time, you probably had a nice job description with clearly defined KPAs and the rest. It was easy to know what you had to do, when you were meeting your targets, and when you were exceeding expectations. You would get rewards like a promotion or a salary increase when you'd performed well. Even a complement from the boss would make you feel like you were amazing.

Now, one of the very significant parts of your job description is being MOM and there are no KPAs for that. And if you're looking for traditional rewards, you're going to be very disappointed when the fish bake puree you spent hours preparing gets summarily rejected by your 18-month old!

I've had to work hard at letting go of perfectionism - it was just ruining all the fun and I was left with a list of "perfect" half-done tasks. [Ironically as I write this Garren is asking me whether I'm going to finish this blog post this afternoon - he knows I like to go overboard!] I think I must write more on this in another post, but suffice to say that your 50% is someone else's 101%, so let go of "perfect" and start embracing "good-enough" - he's actually a lot more cuddly!

So you've got to change the way you view achievement. And sometimes getting you and your family to the end of the day in one piece is a major achievement. I now pat myself on the back every time I have a course ready to present without any late nights. And when my son remembers an activity I did with him months ago, its like a metaphorical incentive bonus for taking the time to do activities with him.

Choose your work wisely

When going back to work after a baby, most of us will gravitate towards the work that we did before baby and obviously you can't stray too far from your skills set, experience and qualifications. But sometimes your old job just won't work in a WAHM setup.

Let me use my own situation as an example. Before I had my son, I wrote and edited school textbooks. It was at a time where the curriculum was changing and the publishers needed to meet the most outrageous submission deadlines I've ever had to work under. The thought of trying to meet these deadlines now fills me with horror. It's not just the hard work, but the fact that nothing can go wrong between now and that deadline. Every minute has work allocated to it and there is a ration of sleep available (for the weak!). So of course if you're working in your home, with your kids, stuff can go wrong. Oh yes it can...

So for the time being, I've had to turn down textbook work and offer my writing skills in a different context. I've continued with writing training material that I self-publish with one main client (and thus have far more say about deadlines). I've also used my writing skills to do website design and some online marketing, which I've found fits in nicely within a WAHM setup. I find that website design is (for the most part) something I can work on when I have 10 minutes, then come back to it tomorrow when I have an hour, and so on. Textbook writing required long blocks of uninterrupted time.

Another thing to think about when choosing your work (or if you're already working, refining what you're offering) is your availability. Don't offer to be available 24/7 and whenever possible, favour asynchronous communication (like email) over synchronous communication (like a phone call). That way, you can deal with client questions at a time that suits you and your family.

Think about how much you're going to be needed away from your home office base. Often, meetings, or work on site is a part of what you're offering, but if it forms the crux of what you're offering, it might not work for a WAHM. Having said that, if you can force some predictability into the equation with reliable childcare (see below), then you can probably work around it.

Takeaway: Think about what work you're going to do. Aspects include typical deadlines, your expected availability, work that you can do in short blocks of time, how often you're going to be needed away from your home office.

Childcare and scheduling

Before I had my son, I had visions of my child sitting on my lap while I typed happily and productively on my laptop. Ah, so funny...

Back in the real world and two wise years later, what I've found works best is to block out work time and time for my son in my schedule. Of course the two are bound to mix and there'll be last-minute changes on the day, but I've found that having a basic plan beats multitasking by a mile! I've tried to do a bit of work on my laptop while my son plays in his sandpit, but I've found that the more urgent the work, the more fervently he pulls me away from it! Multitasking is also horrible because you can't be fully present in either of your activities.

That does mean that you've got to make an arrangement for childcare. I am lucky to have both of my son's sets of grandparents within a kilometre of my house and that they are very willing to help look after my son. So he goes to Granny for two mornings a week and to Gran for two afternoons a week and so far this is working splendidly!

I realise of course that I'm one of the lucky few! But there are other childcare options. We had an au pair come to the house three mornings a week for a while and that worked well too. It took a little while for my son to realise that I was going to be working upstairs while he was downstairs playing, and I would say that the out-of-home care setup we've got now might be a better arrangement, especially for those periods of separation anxiety that tend to come up.

If you do need to do work outside of the home, then many of my friends have found that a nanny/au pair at home works well. They then schedule their meetings for the days and times that the nanny is working.

WAHM's stick together!

Don't hide the fact that you're a WAHM. This will help you to attract the kind of clients that you actually want. Also, don't underestimate the value that you bring as a WAHM to a business relationship.

I've also had the opportunity to work with other WAHM's, both as clients, as colleagues, and as contractors providing a service to me, and it has been great. So I think there's a lot of value - both business value and in terms of a support system - in building our WAHM network.

Plan, Do, Reflect, Improve (aka Iterate)

It's quite difficult for me to write this post in a sense because I don't want to generalise and I can't really preach a set of rules that will work in eery WAHM's situation. So you've actually got to judge for yourself how things are working. That's why I'd highly recommend scheduling a weekly planning and reflection session, where you:

reflect on the previous week - assess what worked and what didn't; highlight and celebrate your achievements (in all areas of your life)

plan the next week - if you planned to do more than you got done in the previous week, then plan to do less in the week ahead; look to change the things that didn't work in the previous week

Get used to iterating – you’re never going to be able to sit pretty and say, OK I’m now into this, I’ve got this WAHM thing. There are too many moving parts – you’ve got to keep adjusting as you go and some days are going to be a disaster, but be kind to yourself – you’ve probably achieved more than you think.

As you reflect and then plan ahead, try to find the CHOICE in everything you do. If something is making you unhappy/stressed, then come up with at least five alternatives, even if you would never actually consider doing some of those alternatives.

Discussion questions

At Mom's Group, we discussed our answers to some of these questions. Why don't you answer some (or all!) of them in the comments?

Describe your ideal day as a WAHM. How much does this differ from reality?

What are your most significant challenges as a WAHM?

What do you enjoy most about being a WAHM?

What efficiency/time management tips can you share?

How do you cope with unforeseen events?

What help/advice/resources would you like as a WAHM to make your life more enjoyable?

What do you plan on changing as a result of what we’ve discussed today?

I’ve just had so much fun creating a scenario-based e-learning course on assertiveness in the workplace, so I thought I’d blog about the process. Besides my regular toolkit, two new tools were essential to the instructional design and look and feel of the course – Twine and Go Animate. Go Animate was a particular lifesaver because it allowed me to capture just the right actions and facial expressions of the different characters in my scenarios. This was something that was a lot more difficult to achieve by trawling through clipart sites looking for the same character in different poses (generally not looking at the camera).

The goal and targeted actions of the course

The goal of the course is to improve workplace communication, specifically by helping learners to become more assertive in the way that they communicate. It targets actions like active listening, being direct, using I-language, and saying no when you mean it. The e-learning course will be used at the start of a face-to-face training session and its aim is to help learners discover how assertive they are, and what it means to be assertive in everyday situations. Bandwidth guzzlers like video and audio have been avoided because of limitations in this regard, so I have intentionally kept the course quite simple.

Building the scenarios in Twine

I started mapping out the course using Twine – a recommendation from Cathy Moore. Twine is a tool for creating interactive stories, which makes it perfect for building scenario-based courses. In my course, the main character, Amy, is faced with a situation and the learner must choose one of three possible actions for Amy to take. The learner then observes the turn of events and Amy’s co-workers’ reactions based on the action the learner chose for Amy. I felt like a novelist as I conjured up all manner of situations that Amy would be faced with (sometimes borrowing liberally from my own experience); and then I took great delight in describing the different reactions of her co-workers, especially when Amy took a particularly aggressive stance. I also added a more theoretical explanation of the outcome in order to introduce the learners to new terminology and start to link the practical situations to the theory.

As you create your story in Twine, you write short passages (in boxes), which you link to other passages (shown by arrows). When you build your story, it outputs to HTML and you can go through each passage of the story in your browser – like a choose-your-own-adventure book. At this point, I shared the HTML file on Dropbox with a few of my “trusted advisors” and got their opinions on the believability of the situations and the characters’ reactions. I wanted to make sure that the scenarios were realistic and that the choices were challenging to make. They came back with a few helpful suggestions, which I implemented when I started the next phase…

Capturing images from Go Animate

With my stories straight, I went over to Go Animate to start creating images for my scenarios. Now, let me be quite frank here – I was not using Go Animate for its intended purpose. Go Animate is a web-based tool that you can use to create animated skits using different characters and settings. It’s targeted at people like me who cannot programme in Flash, but need to put together short animated videos. It’s a great tool and I have used it to create full animations previously (complete with dialogue, camera effects and various character actions), but this time I needed something a little bit lower tech…

Each step in the story used one Go Animate scene. I set up the scene, chose actions and expressions for the characters and then took a screen shot. So much easier than searching a clipart website for the same character now with a "disappointed" or "angry" look! In a few steps I could change the actions of my characters (standing, sitting, folding arms, etc.) and their facial expressions (angry, happy, surprised, etc.). I used some of the stock characters and I also created a few of my own characters using the character builder (building new characters costs a few “Go Bucks”). You can use some Go Animate functionality for free, but other features are available on a pay-as-you-go basis, or there is a premium package (Go Plus).

I am worried about receiving some backlash about using Go Animate in this way, but it happened to fill a gap for me that I had found in the clipart space. While I would never want to be without them, the free clipart sites are tired; and even if I did have the budget for a paid stock images account, I’m not convinced I would have found exactly the types of images I was looking for in an amount of time that justified the investment. Out of all the options, using Go Animate in this way had the most advantages and the least drawbacks. Incidentally, one of the drawbacks is the image quality. I’d like to investigate ways to get a higher quality screenshot, but for my purposes, the image quality was adequate.

Putting it all together in PowerPoint and Articulate

I inserted the various screen shots into PowerPoint, where I had set up two slide masters – “question master” and “reaction master”. I cut and paste the passages from Twine into the relevant parts of each slide. In a few cases, I had to cut back some of the dialogue or explanations in order to fit everything neatly onto the slide.

If I did have more bandwidth to work with, I would do the full animation for each passage, together with voiceovers. This would do away with the text in the speech bubbles and make the screens less text-heavy. I think the full animations would add a pleasant dimension to the course, but I also don’t think that this comic-book style is half-bad either!

Would you like to have a look at the finished course? For the month of March, I’ve allowed free access to the course on Classroom 7. Just sign up and you’ll be able to view the course.

What do you think of this approach to getting images for scenarios? Leave a comment and let me know.

I’ve just spent 3 weeks travelling in the UK and Turkey with my husband, Garren. We flew Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, and after spending a few days there, we flew to Nevshehir Airport in Cappadocia (the photo on the left shows some of the amazing cave dwellings in Cappadocia).

Now this blog started when I watched the flight safety video on Turkish Airlines. The “wow-factor” of the Turkish Airlines flight safety video is that it features a few of the stars of the Manchester United football team. After watching the video four times, I have to admit that I found myself drifting off, but it got me thinking about learning, particularly how we approach e-learning. Some specific insights include: how we think about the purpose of learning; the balance between “substance” and “sizzle”; how we use humour; and how we deal with information that needs to be presented in two or more languages.

You can watch the video here, but let me give you the gist. The passengers are welcomed on board and then the Manchester United stars are introduced. Next, passengers get a piece of safety information in English, with an on-screen demonstration of what is being said. Cut to the Man-U boys in a studio, who interpret the instruction incorrectly – for a bit of mild comedy. On our flight, each English instruction was repeated in Turkish, which meant that the premier leaguers repeated their skit each time too.

Purpose

According to Turkish Airlines, the thinking behind this video is “that this unique approach will encourage passengers to pay close attention to the video and highlight the importance of inflight safety.” So there’re two purposes of this “learning intervention” – to get passengers to pay attention, and to make sure that passengers behave in a safe manner. Although Turkish Airlines has done something different with this video, and it’s nice that they’ve taken a more light-hearted approach, the video didn’t hold my attention and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Why?

That sizzle’s got to have some substance

There’s a lot of “sizzle” in the video: enlisting the Man-U guys was a clever move on many levels; there’s a cute little family discovering a real aircraft; and the video makes use of a funky soundtrack and some well-chosen multimedia effects. This certainly captures peoples’ attention, but it doesn’t hold it.

I felt that the video took too long to get to the morsels of substance. The English-only video is 5 and a half minutes long; when the Turkish instructions are included, the length of the video increases to over ten minutes. So in my opinion the “sizzle” had the effect of drawing out the video and belabouring points that, let's be honest, are fairly well-known.

How can this knowledge help me as an e-learning designer? It’s reminded me to keep focussed on the purpose of the course and to add “sizzle” only where it helps to fulfil a learning objective. I’ve learnt to look out for situations where the “sizzle” becomes gimmicky or annoying and reconsider its place in the course.

Timing is essential to humour

There comes a point where Wayne Rooney doing forward rolls on an escape slide in a studio is no longer funny.

The skits with the soccer players are supposed to keep passengers interested by using humour, but in my opinion the humour fails. I’m no comedian, but I think the timing was off. The soccer players are in a studio, not in an airplane, and so their antics seem staged and de-contextualised. And given that most people flying will be on a return flight in the near future, I think the attempt at humour is just going to be irritating after the first time.

I’ve seen humour put to better use on Kulula, a low-cost airline in South Africa. Here, the chief flight attendant goes through the safety information over the address system and throws in a few jokes. I’ve been on many Kulula flights and I’ve only heard the odd joke repeated. Some even bring current affairs into the mix. It’s sincere and the timing works – I think this is a better context in which to use humour.

So what does this teach us about e-learning? If you’re going to use humour, make sure it is contextualised, well-timed, and of course, unoffensive. If your learners are going to need to refer to the course or job aid more than once, then carefully consider the way in which you use humour. You don’t want your learners to feel like they’re watching reruns of sitcoms that were mediocre in the first place.

Lost in translation

As a citizen of a country with 11 official languages, I am aware of the challenges that come with multi-lingual instruction. The Turkish Airlines video gave each instruction in English and then in Turkish. Of course, I realise the necessity for giving the information in two languages, but I think this was another reason why I found myself drifting off, and why (at over 10 minutes), the video seemed painfully long.

I think that in this instance, two separate videos (one for each language) would have been preferable. Translating each instruction meant that passengers had to watch each set of visuals twice – and watch the Man-U skit a second time! It quickly became tedious.

From an e-learning perspective, we need to think carefully about the way we group learners, whether it’s by language group, or by other groupings. We need to guard against throwing all the information in the direction of all the learners and hoping it will stick. In many cases (and particularly when dealing with different languages), it’s appropriate to establish different tracks for different groups of learners. I also think that it’s important for learners to be able to pull information that they need to take a certain action, rather than pushing all the information towards them.

Have you learnt anything from customer education videos that has taught you something about the way we design e-learning? If so, please leave a comment.

I’m going to be writing another blog post on the OR Tambo International Airport orientation video that we were made to watch on our South African Airways flight back home. It reminded me of many knowledge dump e-learning interventions, and of how a job aid would have been a much better option.

I've been doing a lot of instructional design for e-learning courses lately. It's been such fun, even though meeting the rather tight deadlines meant that I didn't always get 8 hours of sleep each night. But the work itself is so interesting and as I've been designing, I've become even more aware of the fact that instructional design is a craft. The more you practise a craft, the more you learn, the more you apply, and the better you get.

So before the next deluge of work comes in, I thought I'd stop to reflect on the craft of instructional design, particularly in an e-learning context. Because it's a craft, the craftsperson (is there such a word...?) needs a toolkit. I've identified five tools that I can't go without in my toolkit.

The paintbrush of graphic design

I'm certainly no artist, but I've learnt to use the graphics capabilities of PowerPoint (which are surprisingly immense) to get my visual messages across. When necessary, I open up CorelDraw to do some of the more intricate graphic editing. The Articulate community has some brilliant graphic assets for e-learning and I always learn something new from The Rapid e-learning Blog - whether it's about graphic design, or other instructional design tips.

I think that as instructional designers, at least a third of what we do involves graphic design and so it's important that we keep honing our craft in this regard. For design inspiration, I like to read the blog at Webdesigner Depot.

The spirit-level of creating learning patterns

I love Steve Krug's web usability book called Don't Make Me Think! and I believe it has influenced the way I think about instructional design in e-learning. I recommend it to any instructional designers.

We need to create patterns in our learners' minds, so that learners can build new knowledge on top of existing knowledge, which means they will be in a better position to apply what they know.

Also, in our quest to use the paintbrush of graphic design as extensively as possible, we also need to remember that overuse of graphic elements can detract from the learning message that is being communicated. That's where the spirit level of learning patterns comes in to neaten up the visual patterns on screen and to provide overall balance to the instructional design.

The pencil of "put it on paper"

When you buy a toolkit from the shop, it doesn't always have a pencil in it, but any good craftsperson knows that there are times when only a pencil will do.

I think we all need to be careful of believing that e-learning has some kind of superiority over paper-based learning. Each methodology has it's purpose. Another myth is that if we present learners with information in an e-learning course, they will be able to retain and apply it more effectively than if they'd read it in a book. We need to be careful that these kind of myths and assumptions don't negatively influence our practice.

There are times when blocks of content will be better communicated to a learner if they are put on paper, rather than in an e-learning format. Often the "blended learning" solution of an e-learning course with an accompanying resource pack or manual will be the best solution. I want to dedicate a whole blog to this topic in future, so if you're interested in hearing more, then subscribe to the Action Light blog.

The pliers of concise writing

All instructional designers need to appreciate the value of concise and direct writing for our learners. Many of the learners in my target audiences will have English as a second language and so using flowery and figurative language, or repeating instructions in several different ways is actually going to be a barrier to learning.

I found myself using the pliers of concise writing in cases where I had limited space for a piece of text. I reworded the sentence or paragraph to make it shorter and in most cases, the result was a better, more understandable piece of text. So don't be afraid to take out the pliers of concise writing and cut out redundancies and flowery language - unless you have a very good reason for it.

The drill of interrogation

Drilling holes into a wall is not fun, it does not look nice initially, and it makes a real mess. However, in order to put up that shelf or that curtain rail, you've got to do it. In the end, you clean up the mess and realise it was all worth it when you admire the finished product.

I've learnt to drill holes into my own work. This means reflecting on what I've done, making improvements where I see they are needed, and making changes that I know the client will want to see. Sometimes, the process means taking the tough decision and pressing delete on a batch of work I've spent a lot of time on, but is just not working. (Although if it has potential, it's a little less drastic and it gets cut and pasted into a new project - in the hope that I can maybe reuse it in the future).

More difficult is letting other people drill holes into my work. But once I've silenced that little defensive voice in my head, the feedback that I receive from other people often leads me to discover new things and the overall result is quite pleasing.

When I am conducting training in any of my business skills modules, I am often asked the question, “I would like to start my own business – how do I go about putting together a business plan?” So I decided to blog on this topic and include a business plan template to get people started on the entrepreneurship journey. But as I was adapting my own business plan, I realised that I had done a lot of thinking (and a fair amount of actual work) before I put finger to keyboard to type out my business plan. So before you start your business plan, here are a few suggestions to awaken your inner entrepreneur and help to turn your good idea into a viable small business.

Think Big

If you’re in the early stages of conceptualising your idea, I would suggest doing some more big-picture thinking first, but make sure you write down all of your ideas. Here are some suggestions:

Brainstorm – this is simply a dump of everything you have in your head with regard to your business idea. Get a large clear sheet of paper and just write – avoid listing or drawing a mind map at this stage – the idea is to get your ideas down onto paper – the messier the better. If you’re working with a business partner, do this exercise individually and then repeat it together. Compare brainstorms.

Get more orderly – as you brainstorm, your thoughts will start to become clearer. Now is the time to start documenting your ideas in a more ordered way – draw mind maps, make lists and even start making sketches of what your logo will look like.

Read widely – there are many good blogs out there that will encourage you as you go out on your own – I like Freelance Folder, Freelance Switch and Signal vs. Noise for general entrepreneurial and freelancing tips. You should also seek out blogs in your business’s area of specialism and subscribe to them using a feed reader – I love my Google Reader.

Do a SWOT analysis – divide a blank sheet of paper into four quadrants. Write the headings: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats at the top of each quadrant. Think about your business idea and then write down its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats under the appropriate heading.

Establish how you are going to make money. In all the fun of conceptualising and brainstorming, you may get slightly carried away and forget that the aim of any business is to make money. So at some stage, you will need to clarify how it will happen that people will take their hard-earned cash and put it in your hands (or deposit it into your bank account!).

I’ve also come across Google Umbono, which is an “entrepreneurship incubator” initiative which helps technology companies jump start their idea. Of course, we’re not all in the technology field, but I found their list of questions in their application form very insightful and thought provoking, while still being simple and clear. I think any budding entrepreneur should be able to answer those questions of their next big idea.

The business plan

So, you’ve done some big-picture thinking and you’re ready to write your business plan. As you begin writing, think about the intended audience: Are you applying to the bank for funding? Are you applying to another company or agency for funding? Or do you just want to outline the plan and purpose for your business? Whatever your reason is, think about the person reading your business plan – what will they want to know and how are you going to convince them of your business’s viability?

The headings that I would suggest for a business plan are listed below. If you’d like a Word template, then send me a mail and I’ll happily forward you one.

Table of Contents

Insert a Table of Contents [References; Table of Contents] once you have finished the entire business plan and you have finalized the page breaks [Control + Enter].

Executive Summary

Write this part last. It will be a summary of everything that is in the business plan. Be warned, many “executives” will only read this part, so make sure it’s the best part of the business plan and it should not exceed about half a page (for a 5-8 page business plan) – that’s very difficult for me...

Company Description

Describe your company, areas of specialism, company values, etc.

People Involved

List all the people who will be involved in the company (this may just be one person). Write a brief biography for each person, giving details of their experience, qualifications (if appropriate) and the skills that they will bring to the business.

Target Market and Opportunity

The target market is the broad groups of people who you think will use your product or service. Then you need to discuss the opportunities that the business can take advantage of. Explain the problem(s) that the business will solve and explain what the business can offer in the existing circumstances.

Strategy: How will the business compete in the chosen market?

Discuss your unique selling features; who you might partner with to advance your business goals; and how your business will set itself apart from any competitors.

Business Model: How will the business make a profit?

How will you charge? Per hour, per day, per product sold?

If you are selling goods, what do you expect your costs to be and how much mark-up will you put on your goods in order to make a profit? Essentially, how are you going to make money from your idea.

Management: How will the business be managed and organised?

Who will be responsible for the overall management of the business? How will the finances of the business be handled? For example, who will keep a record of finances and will the books need to be audited? What resources (computers, equipment etc.) are needed and how will they be managed?

Marketing: How will the business tell the market about its product?

Marketing goes far beyond just advertising and includes all of the ways you plan to market your product e.g. attending workshops or conferences, linking up with other companies who offer a complementary service, offering a free trial or demo, use of promotional material etc. Consider starting a website or even just a blog (Posterous is great) or a Facebook group to publicise your product or service.

Operations: How will the business function on a day-to-day basis?

Here you should explain who will be in charge of running the business on a day-to-day basis and give a brief description of how you will handle the workflow in your business. List the types of operations/functions that will take up the majority of the working week.

Finance: What is the financial future of the company?

Explain why the business has a promising financial future – refer to any examples that illustrate the business’s financial viability. If the business has been in existence, then it may be appropriate to include a summary of the business’s financials here. If the business is a new business, then you may wish to estimate your expected turnover, expenses and profit.

Starting your own business does have its challenges. A wise man I know always says that the worst boss you can ever work for is yourself. However, it could be the most rewarding career and lifestyle decision you may ever make. Good luck!